| That's why I can't wait to find out what Skeeter's unearthed! Dumbledore kept that sister of his quiet for a long time!"
"Untrue!" wheezed Doge, "Absolutely untrue!"
"He never told me his sister as a Squib," said Harry, without thinking, still cold inside
"And why on earth would he tell you?" screeched Muriel, swaying a little in her seat as she attempted to focus upon Harry
"The reason Albus never spoke about Ariana," began Elphias in a voice stiff with emotion, "is, I should have thought, quite clearHe was so devastated by her death -"
"Why did nobody ever see her, Elphias?" squawked Muriel, "Why did half of us never even know she existed, until they carried the coffin out of the house and held a funeral for her? Where was saintly Albus while Ariana was locked in the cellar? Off being brilliant at Hogwarts, and never mind what was going on in his own house!"
"What d'you mean, locked in the cellar?" asked Harry"What is this?"
Doge looked wretchedAuntie Muriel cackled again and answered Harry
"Dumbledore's mother was a terrifying woman, simply terrifyingMuggle-born, though I heard she pretended otherwise-"
"She never pretended anything of the sort! Kendra was a fine woman," whispered Doge miserably, but Auntie Muriel ignored him
"- white chanel j12 watch replica proud and very domineering, the sort of witch who would have been mortified to produce a Squib-"
"Ariana was not a Squib!" wheezed Doge
"So you say, Elphias, but explain, then, why she never attended Hogwarts!" said Auntie MurielShe turned back to Harry"In our day, Squibs were often hushed up, thought to take it to the extreme of actually imprisoning a little girl in the house and pretending she didn't exist -"
"I tell you, that's not what happened!" said Doge, but Auntie Muriel steamrollered on, still addressing Harry
Squibs were usually shipped off to Muggle schools and encouraged to integrate into the Muggle community\a133 much kinder than trying to find them a place in the Wizarding world, where they must always be second class, but naturally Kendra Dumbledore wouldn't have dreamed of letting her daughter go to a Muggle school -"
"Ariana was delicate!" said Doge desperately"Her health was always too poor to permit her -"
"- to permit her to leave the house?" cackled Muriel"And yet she was never taken to StMungo's and no Healer was ever summoned to see her!"
"Really, Muriel, how can you possibly know whether -"
"For your information, Elphias, my cousin Lancelot was a Healer at StMungo's at the time, and he told my family in louis vuitton denim pleaty bag strictest confidence that Ariana had never been seen thereAll most suspicious, Lancelot thought!"
Doge looked to be on the verge of tearsAuntie Muriel, who seemed to be enjoying herself hugely, snapped her fingers for more champagneNumbly Harry
thought of how the Dursleys had once shut him up, locked him away, kept him out of sight, all for the crime of being a wizardHad Dumbledore's sister suffered the same fate in reverse: imprisoned for her lack of magic? And had Dumbledore truly left her to her fate while he went off to Hogwarts to prove himself brilliant and talented?
"Now, if Kendra hadn't died first," Muriel resumed, "I'd have said that it was she who finished off Ariana -"
"How can you, Muriel!" groaned Doge"A mother kill her own daughter? Think what you're saying!"
"If the mother in question was capable of imprisoning her daughter for years on end, why not?" shrugged Auntie Muriel"But as I say, it doesn't fit, because Kendra died before Ariana - of what, nobody ever seemed sure-"
"Yes, Ariana might have made a desperate bid for freedom and killed Kendra in the struggle," said Auntie Muriel thoughtfully"Shake your head all you like, ElphiasYou were at Ariana's funeral, were you not?"
"Yes I was," said Doge, through trembling women louis vuitton handbag lips," and a more desperately sad occasion I cannot rememberAlbus was heartbroken-"
"His heart wasn't the only thingDidn't Aberforth break Albus' nose halfway through the service?"
If Doge had looked horrified before this, it was nothing to how he looked nowMuriel might have stabbed himShe cackled loudly and took another swig of champagne, which dribbled down her chin
"How do you -?" croaked Doge
"My mother was friendly with old Bathilda Bagshot," said Auntie Muriel happily"Bathilda described the whole thing to mother while I was listening at the doorThe way Bathilda told it, Aberforth shouted that it was all Albus' fault that Ariana was dead and then punched him in the faceAccording to Bathilda, Albus did not even defend himself, and that's odd enough in itselfAlbus could have destroyed Aberforth in a duel with both hands tied behind his back
Muriel swigged yet more champagneThe recitation of those old scandals seemed to elate her as much as they horrified DogeHarry did not know what to think, what to believeHe wanted the truth and yet all Doge did was sit there and bleat feebly that Ariana had been illHarry could hardly believe that Dumbledore would not have intervened if such cruelty was happening inside his own house, and yet there discount tiffany jewelry was undoubtedly something odd about the story
"And I'll tell you something else," Muriel said, hiccupping slightly as she lowered her goblet"I think Bathilda has spilled the beans to Rita SkeeterAll those hints in Skeeter's interview about an important source close to the Dumbledores - goodness knows she was there all through the Ariana business, and it would fit!"
"Bathilda, would never talk to Rita Skeeter!" whispered Doge
"Bathilda Bagshot?" Harry said"The author of \iA History of Magic\i?"
The name was printed on the front of one of Harry's textbooks, though admittedly not one of the ones he had read more attentively
"Yes," said Doge, clutching at Harry's question like a drowning man at a life heir"A most gifted magical historian and an old friend of Albus's
"Quite gaga these days, I've heard," said Auntie Muriel cheerfully
"If that is so, it is even more dishonorable for Skeeter to have taken advantage of her," said Doge, "and no reliance can be placed on anything Bathilda may have said!"
"Oh, there are ways of bringing back memories, and I'm sure Rita Skeeter knows them all," said Auntie Muriel "But even if Bathilda's completely cuckoo, I'm sure she'd still have old photographs, maybe even lettersShe knew the Dumbledores for omega men watches years\ |
| 